Warrior Witch (The Malediction Trilogy #3)(47)

“Only a few left, and you can get back to standing in front of the gate.”

The sour voice bounced off the walls, and I squeezed into a crack between the rocks, snapping the shield closed on my lantern and tucking it behind my cloak for good measure. A boot scraped against stone, and though I was a few paces away from the path, I held my breath.

Silver light illuminated the blackness and, seconds later, an orb floated past my hiding spot. Then an armored guard carrying a sluag spear, followed by what looked like a troll in a miner’s guild uniform, then another guard. They were moving in the same direction as I had been, which meant they’d either been outside or somewhere else within the labyrinth.

“Here.”

Steel clinked against rock and feet shuffled. I wanted to see what they were doing, but I didn’t dare move. Trolls had exceptional hearing, and my luck wasn’t good. Either way, they didn’t linger, footsteps falling away. I waited until I was sure they were gone, then squeezed out of my hiding spot. Looking both ways to make sure I saw no trace of silver light, I turned up my lantern and proceeded forward, passing a bright red X.

I paused. It wasn’t the first such marking I’d seen, but I hadn’t been able to make heads or tails of what they indicated, so I’d ignored them. Only this was where the group had lingered, so it must mean something. The X was above a fissure in the rock; otherwise, I could see nothing remarkable about the location. Pulling off my glove, I tentatively lifted my hand to the crack, then froze as heat warmed my fingers.

Magic.

But for what purpose, I couldn’t say. My skin prickled, but standing here staring seemed unlikely to provide answers, so I kept walking.

I passed several more X markings as I made my way toward Trollus, but no other parties of trolls. Other than tired feet, a skinned knee, and a bruised elbow, I’d escaped the labyrinth unscathed. Rather than filling me with confidence, my skin prickled with gooseflesh and my mouth felt dry no matter how many sips I took from my water skin. Something’s not right. Something’s not right.

Trailing one hand along the wall, I walked across the cracked cobbles of the parts of Trollus that had been destroyed by rock, hearing the first echoes of the waterfall and remembering when I’d come this way with Marc and Luc. How it had been terrifying and magical and unknown, and now… I swallowed down the pang in my heart. Now it felt almost like coming home.

Voices. I closed the shield on my lantern, pressing a hand against the crushed buildings. I rounded a slight bend, and stopped, a group of a dozen trolls standing next to the closed gate. I’d suspected it would be guarded, and I swiftly retreated back until I found an open street branching off the main. Angoulême and his followers hadn’t come through the gate – they’d used a hole in the upper reaches to gain access to the labyrinth. And it was that entrance I sought.

What I found was the slime and the stench of sluag, and judging from the slick mess beneath my feet, more than one.

“Stones and sky,” I whispered, covering my mouth and nose with one hand while the other held the lantern up so I could see.

I instantly regretted it.

The street was filled with bones. It was impossible to say how many bodies there were, because the remains were all mixed together in pools of offal. Dozens. Maybe more. The sluag had carved their way into some of the crushed buildings to create dank warrens from which smell and darkness poured, and my heart escalated into a staccato beat as I crept past the openings, my legs wanting to run even as my mind knew it would only draw their attention.

The bones didn’t crunch beneath my feet so much as they bent, giving way beneath my weight as though they were made of rubber. Scraps of fabric, buttons, weapons, and bits of simple jewelry were scattered amongst them, but I couldn’t tell if they’d come from trolls, half-bloods, humans, or a mixture of all three.

Barooom. The sluag’s call was faint, but I flinched. It was time to be gone from this place.

Barooom. My nerves cracked and I broke into a run, leaping over piles of bones, sludge splashing up on my trouser legs. The ceiling of the tunnel dropped, and I bent lower and lower until I had to rest one hand on the ground for balance.

Barooom. Was it getting closer? I almost wished the space would get smaller so that the creature wouldn’t be able to follow, and, caught up in my wishing, I almost fell into a hole that yawned up in the ground in front of me.

It was the odor I recognized more than anything else, a damp and faintly musty scent that I associated with Trollus. Setting my lantern aside, I leaned down into the hole and was rewarded with a faint glimmer of silver light.

I’d found a route into the city.





Chapter Twenty-Seven





Tristan





Josette informed them that her sister had sent her to Trianon for her own safety, which was absolute lunacy, in my opinion. Trianon was a target, not a safe haven. But Sabine and Marc were clearly both too distracted to question her claim, and I was more interested in what the spy who’d just landed in our midst intended to do than I was in outing her.

They left Joss alone with me.

I pretended to ignore her.

“Cécile sends her love,” she said, skirting around the growling dog. “She misses you.”

I highly doubted Cécile had sent along those sentiments, but my chest tightened nonetheless. She’d been worming her way into my thoughts for the past several hours. I’d told myself it was because she was relevant to my problem with the Winter Queen, but it was more than that. She was up to something, and whatever it was had her nerves stretched tight. I patted my pocket, thinking it might be time to take another dose.